Topic #3: I Strengthened Some Important Friendships

I wrote a post recently about my summer. I have a 4-topic series about the highlights of the summer. You can read the post that leads to these four posts here. Topic #1 and Topic #2 are done too.

When I came back to Chicago, I began to spend more time with friends. Bad was one friend I began to spend more time with. We got even closer, which I'm glad about because he's such a great person. I've had him as a close friend for years now, but it was mostly a long-distance friendship. Between rock climbing, going out to eat, hanging out downtown, we had been kicking it pretty hard. Things are going to change this weekend when his girlfriend Jordan moves to the city. She starts grad school next year. I'm not a fan of being a third wheel, but I'm hoping it's not too rough of a transition from hanging out with just him to hanging out with both of them.

I also reconnected with some other friends from church. In particular, my girl Michelle. There is a group of six women (eight when we're all in town) that kind of hung out a lot while we were in high school in our church youth group. There are actually two more, but because they never lived near us, they were never in the permanent group. All except one of us are done with undergrad (for now or with a degree), and we're back in the neighborhood of our church. As we begin to get involved in church as adults and make lives for ourselves, we're spending time together. My favorite evening of a week is when we sometimes get together, just have a couple of drinks and play cards. We also go out and we really help each other out when something comes up. They're not exactly the Sex and the City crew I always wanted and imagined I'd have, but they fit for this time in my life.

And lastly there is Sonny. We were friends in elementary, middle, and high school. He always has these over-demanding girlfriends, so we kind of lost touch throughout college. But now that I'm an adult and have learned the beauty and benefit of befriending my guy friend's girls, we spend more time together. His fiancee Cher is... interesting... I think I could really like her, but because of some issues with his family and other friends, she's not 100% receptive to my offer of friendship. What I do know is that she is fun and sweet and I am wearing her down over time. It's only been a couple of months, so I'm not giving up yet. And getting her to think of me as a friend will be instrumental in keeping him in my life. In the time since I've been back, he's proven himself to be a good friend to me. He needs me (I helped pick out her engagement ring and was the only person he would've even thought to ask) and he's there for me when I need him (he helped me move from Rockford). And we have a lot of fun hanging out (I mean the three of us and just Sonny and me).

With these friendships blooming happily, I'm really excited for my future friendship prospects. All of these people are people I've known for the majority of my life. I've always been fearful that friends from when I was young wouldn't fit once I was older. That's been true about some people, but I"m glad it hasn't been true for everyone.